


Composition

by Pouncer



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003), Fall Out Boy
Genre: Fusion, Het, Other, Post-Apocalyptic, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-26
Updated: 2008-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:43:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pouncer/pseuds/Pouncer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hurry the frak up, Patrick! Dirty's got us two seats on a ship, but we've got to make it before the Toasters drop a frakkin' bomb on Attica." Pete had never been so grateful to be touring in the middle of nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Composition

Patrick doesn't sing anymore.

He doesn't hum melodies under his breath. He doesn't tap out beats on his thigh.

He shoved his guitar, an acoustic, into the back of their storage locker the moment it was assigned and hasn't touched it since.

The guitar was snatched from their van as Pete urged him to _hurry the frak up, Patrick! Dirty's got us two seats on a ship, but we've got to make it before the Toasters drop a frakkin' bomb on Attica_. Pete had never been so grateful to be touring in the middle of nowhere.

 

* * *

Pete doesn't sleep much. He roams the corridors of the _Island Def_ after he's done what he can to help the crew. His bunk is only his for eight hours, and they're never the hours where he can still his mind.

When he does sleep, he wakes from nightmares of blackened skin and charred cities.

 

* * *

Captain Adama, ranking Viper pilot, visits to check up on them. Inspect the ship's readiness, ask about supplies, promises to take their concerns back to Commander Adama and President Roslin.

Lieutenant Thrace (_Call me Starbuck_) lounges behind Adama as he addresses the refugees packed into the mess hall.

Pete isn't listening. He's collected scraps of paper, edges torn into more than eight sides, and scribbles down words. Line after line of misery and memory that he'll give to Patrick. Pete waits for Patrick to return to him with songs, but he never does, only folds Pete's words up and stows them next to his abandoned guitar.

 

* * *

"Hey." The voice behind Pete is sharp. Old instincts from clubs make him tense, but Starbuck smiles at him broadly.

"Hey," Pete says, and tries to uncurl his hands.

"Don't I know you from somewhere?" she asks.

"I doubt it." Fall Out Boy had been on the cusp of big success, but they hadn't made it there yet when the world exploded.

Her fingers came up and trailed over his collarbone, exposed in a tank top. She smirks before she says, "Nice tattoo."

 

* * *

Andy's skin turned red before the end, sloughed off in patches as the radiation worked its way deeper into his body.

He died, screaming, less than a day after they fled the Twelve Colonies.

 

* * *

Starbuck pushes Pete against the bulkhead, wraps her legs around his waist and bites at his lips. He fraks her standing up, pushing into wet and warmth and drinking in her groans.

She scratches her nails down his back, and drops to her knees to lick at his cock after she comes. Pete shudders, over-sensitive, as she nips his belly. She outlines the Bartskull with her tongue, and sucks a bruise into the open heart at its center.

Pete wishes that he'd never let needles push ink under his skin.

 

* * *

Joe's eyes are hazy, as they always are these days, lost in a chemical fog. Patrick tries to get him to eat, brought plates of tasteless rations to Joe and Pete, but neither of them can choke anything down.

Pete's hipbones are sharper than ever.

 

* * *

"Fall Out Boy," Starbuck announces when she enters the cabin where Pete huddles next to Patrick.

His head jerks up, omnipresent hat nearly falling off, and Patrick says, "Not any more."

Pete sometimes wonders at the gods' sense of irony, to let them survive as individuals while the band flamed out.

 

* * *

She tries to convince Pete, after Patrick leaves. "People need hope. They need something to remind them that there's more to life than hiding and running."

"Yeah," Pete says. "There's dying."

 

* * *

Pete finds Patrick in one of the cargo holds, hidden behind crates, wraps his arms around Patrick, tries to croon comfort but Patrick's having none of it. He shrugs off Pete's embrace, almost stalks away like Pete remembers from the night Patrick tried to strangle him against the van.

Before he gets out of earshot, Pete hears Patrick mutter, "I can't, Pete," and he sags against a wall, broken.

Pete walks behind him, reaches out his hand but doesn't let it touch Patrick's shoulder.

"I miss the sound of your voice," Pete admits.

Patrick stares at the metal plates of the floor. "It hurts too much."

 

* * *

Their fans had said Pete was blessed by Dionysus when he played and that Patrick was favored of Apollo. Pete never believed a word of it, had shed religion as soon as his mother stopped scolding him for missing temple services and holy day festivals.

But there had been _something_, some spark of madness or divinity or fervor tingling between Pete and Patrick and Joe and Andy when they made music together.

Pete remembers what that felt like, and wants it back, even if it can never be the same now.

The Cylons took his family, his friends, his bandmate, his home -- he doesn't want them to take this too, but he can't make songs without Patrick providing the music. It just doesn't work.

 

* * *

A young man in a suit, fresh-faced and curly-haired, arrives next. He's the President's own aide, Billy Keikeya, sent to persuade them to perform over the wireless.

"The President is concerned," Billy says earnestly, "about morale throughout the fleet. Recordings of your music are very popular aboard _Galactica_, and she thinks a live show would raise spirits."

Patrick looks at Pete, who shrugs. It's Patrick's decision.

He shakes his head, exits out of the ante-room. Pete thinks Patrick looked less certain about his refusal.

"If he doesn't want to do it," Pete says, "we won't." Not that his shitty bass ever added much to their sound.

"Let me know if you change your minds," Billy says, then shakes Pete's hand. "And Lieutenant Thrace wanted to extend her greetings."

 

* * *

Pete crawls into Patrick's bunk, wraps himself around Patrick, who wakes and mutters, "What?"

"I have lyrics for you," Pete breathes against Patrick's neck. He loves the scent of Patrick's skin, the way it flushes pink with every emotion. Patrick stills.

Pete runs his hand down Patrick's side. "Try? For me?"

Pete wants to sink into Patrick and never emerge, but Patrick's never responded to Pete's attempts at seduction, has always laughed them off as if they weren't the most serious Pete's been in his entire life.

The sheets rustle as Patrick turns away from Pete. Their breathing synchronizes, and Pete lets himself drift into sleep.

He only wakes when the next occupant of the bunk shakes his shoulder. "Come on, man. What're you doing here anyway? Where's Patrick?"

 

* * *

The guitar takes forever to tune.

Pete wouldn't care if it played flat and sharp at the same time. He listens to the notes Patrick coaxes from the strings, minor chords filled with sadness.

"We'll need Joe," Patrick says, and Pete smiles.

 

-end-

**Author's Note:**

> The chain of thought went like this -- "I need something to read. There's that post-apocalyptic thing, but I don't really like zombies. BSG, though. Hmmmm." I stopped watching Battlestar Galactica at the end of season three, and my personally accepted canon ends at 2x11 Resurrection Ship II, so this story doesn't take anything after that into account.
> 
> My thanks to eleanor_lavish and zeplum for looking this over and giving me their thoughts.
> 
> I like to imagine that Ryan Ross is wandering around another ship, hollow-eyed and clinging to his best friend Spencer. They're annoyed periodically by that Urie kid, the one from the strange cult to Demeter, who's way too spazzy for what they've all been through. My suspicion is that Jon Walker is the ship's pilot.
> 
> Disclaimer Redux: This iteration of Battlestar Galactica was created by Ron Moore. Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump are not from the Twelve Colonies and didn't survive the apocalypse, although I suppose you could make arguments about Hollywood these days. Fall Out Boy are real, this story is fiction. Don't google yourself or your friends, and if you do, please don't tell me.


End file.
